... and talks and talks and talks. For 37 minutes. My gosh, this guy has the gift of gab. I can see why he's such a good recruiter. He can charm you with a tale or two.We media hacks just finished a sit-down with Auburn's assistant head coach and wide receivers coach. Here's a sampling of some of the stuff he had to say:
- He still hasn't had a chance to move in yet. All his boxes are still in Stillwater, Okla. That's how makeshift this last month has been for these guys.
- How frantic has the last month been? "I used to have an afro," the balding coach said.
- On what he likes about Auburn: "I'll tell you, there's a passion. I missed that. When I left Tennessee and I went to Oklahoma State, and not that the fans aren't as rabid, but it's a way of life in the South about football." He told us he gets mobbed at restaurants, something that didn't happen in Stillwater.
- On what Gene Chizik means when he says he has to recruit his own team: "What he's saying is it's time to get our guys on board with us. Everybody cooks their dinner a different way. We can't control what happened in the past, but we can control what happens in the future. We need those guys to buy in."
- Taylor hasn't had much time to watch game film of the team's current players but is delving into that right now.
- On his reputation as being a super-recruiter: "I think that's what makes a good recruiter — being realistic. A lot of guys get caught up in the sales part of it. But you think about the bricks and the buildings and the fields, everybody's got great stadiums, everybody's got nice facilities. The difference is going to be the people inside of them."
- Taylor seems very aware of his limitations. He claims he won't fudge his way through an answer. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll find somebody who does.
- He was very Lincoln-esque when speaking about how an offense succeeds, saying, "A divided house won't stand." He doesn't sound stat-driven: "If you get caught up in numbers and statistics and all that, I think that ego deal comes back to get you. I worked for a guy before that wouldn't take a knee, and it cost us in a game one time. Rather than take a knee and losing yards, he wanted to lead the country in total offense, so he refused to take a knee. Well he went back to hand it off and fumbled it, ran it back for a touchdown. Game over. And being unselfish, he should have just taken a knee, lost the yardage and called it a day."
- What sold him on Chizik as being a guy he wanted to work for? The cleaning lady at the Auburn athletic complex came up and said hello to Chizik like they were best friends. "And if you treat the cleaning lady right, the rest of us have a chance. A lot of people don't care about that. A lot of people worry about the big alums that come through here. That just sent a message to me"
- He stressed character a lot when talking about recruits and players. He said he didn't want to invite a player over to his house that had "to clap the whole time he's in there, because if he's not, he's stealing something."
- Taylor had a lot of background with Gus Malzahn's offense. Mostly because he was charged with trying to copy it while with Oklahoma State. "I was stealing his offense anyway when I was at Oklahoma State and now I don't have to steal it. I can sit there and learn it, because I had no idea what some of the stuff was about, the signals and things. And now it's starting to make sense."
- He said the coaches don't have specific recruiting zones yet and probably won't until the coaching staff is completely filled. The current coaches have submitted to Chizik the areas they feel good about recruiting
- On Chizik's nature: "I've been around a short time and in that short period of time I've seen how specific he is about detail about things. When he asks you to do something, it's not gray. He doesn't want to repeat himself. I think he's got that barber deal where if you don't get it done, he'll go to the next one. It won't take him long. You've got to appreciate that because at least you know where you stand."
- On incoming freshman DeAngelo Benton: "He was a playmaker and I can tell you this: You don't go to sleep a circle and wake up a square. If he could play ball, he can play ball. That's the one thing I saw in the kid. And for him to finish his work and get it done what he had to get done, most kids, if they have that layoff, you're not getting that done. He was able to, so we're excited about him. But he's still got to come in and prove it."
- On not jumping to conclusions too quickly with a kid at a specific position: "Because, guess what, what if he busts? Now you're stuck with a kid that – you're not going to run him off; he's somebody's family – but you're stuck with a kid that can't play and that doesn't help you. You'll be spraying fruit for a living really fast. I don't want to be on the grapes. I like doing the football, myself."
- On his favorite kind of recruits: "I like the ones that my wife can pick out. That's pretty good, you know, when she can put the tape on and say, 'Sign him, baby.'"
- On
- He said Montez Billings is someone who can make plays, Quindarius Carr stood out to him on film and that Tim Hawthorne has "some ability and talent." He said Philip Pierre-Louis has a big brace on his knee still but looks fine right now.
- On what he tells recruits who are making a decision: "I try to tell kids all the time: `Think through it.' They're making a business decision. To me, it's not going to affect just the next four years, it's going to affect the next 40. The next big decision they'll make is who they're going to marry. I'm not getting involved in that. That's on them. I try to make them see they're the CEO of their own company. They have some vice presidents – maybe mom or grandma or dad or whoever – but when those other people start coming in, you probably need to hold them off because their vested interest are not as important as yours."
1 comment:
Good report...sounds like a neat guy with the right attitude toward recruiting...and as you note, has a nice way of making his point.
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